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Gov­ern­ment-run cor­po­ra­tions have wel­comed the pro­posed Na­tion­al Pro­gramme for the Up­keep of Pub­lic Spaces, while op­po­si­tion-led re­gions warn the ini­tia­tive falls short of the scale and reach of the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP).

Con­cerns are al­so mount­ing over po­ten­tial le­gal chal­lenges. An op­po­si­tion at­tor­ney rep­re­sent­ing three for­mer CEPEP con­trac­tors said the State could face lit­i­ga­tion if those con­trac­tors are ex­clud­ed from the new hir­ing process.

Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen con­firmed the pro­gramme in a state­ment on Thurs­day night, af­ter a Cab­i­net note out­lin­ing the ini­tia­tive was leaked. She stressed that the plan is not a re­vival of CEPEP, but a pi­lot project aimed at di­rect­ly em­ploy­ing work­ers through the min­istry.